About
Dr Katrina Skerratt-Love is currently a Royal Society Career Development Fellow hosted by the University of Liverpool in the Department of Engineering (2024 – 2028). Katrina’s research is focused on developing unique types of glass and glass-ceramics capable of shielding astronauts from harmful radiation during space missions which poses significant health risks.
Prior to this appointment, Katrina was in the glass industry where she was briefly a Glass Technologist (2024) at Glass Futures in St Helens, before which she was a Senior Glass Technologist and Business Development Officer at Glass Technology Services (GTS) in Sheffield (2022 – 2024). Whilst at GTS she conducted R&D for commercial and grant funded projects related to nuclear waste vitrification, photonics and optics, and other specialist applications of glass. As the Technical Business Development Officer, Katrina was responsible for promoting growth and revenue in the R&D department, identifying and qualifying leads, seeking new business opportunities, and identifying funding streams.
Katrina obtained her PhD from Sheffield Hallam University in 2023, where she researched phosphate solubility and its effects on US radioactive waste glass properties, where her supervisors were Prof. Paul Bingham and Dr Anthony Bell. This research was partly funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE). Alongside her studies she also contributed to other research projects e.g., the UK’s Advanced Fuel Cycle Programme in collaboration with the University of Sheffield and the National nuclear Laboratory.
Prior to this she gained a BEng(Hons) degree with industrial experience in Materials Engineering at Sheffield Hallam University in 2018.
Katrina has expertise in glass science, in particular glass composition development, lab-scale manufacture, and structure-property characterisation and analysis.